Press release

XCEED, THE NEW BLOCKCHAIN SOLUTION FOR THE CERTIFICATION OF VEHICLE COMPLIANCE, IS MOVING A STEP FURTHER IN EUROPE

• XCEED is a new blockchain solution for the European to certify the compliance of vehicle’s components from design to production. • Developed and realised by Faurecia, Groupe , Knauf Industries, Simoldes, and Coşkunöz, in association with IBM. • The solution at scale is now available to OEMs and automotive suppliers worldwide following a successful test at Renault’s Douai facility. • It will be first implemented at partner plants around Bursa, Douai and Palencia.

Boulogne-Billancourt, 21 April 2021 – Faurecia, Groupe Renault, Knauf Industries, Simoldes, and Coşkunöz, in association with IBM, have signed a partnership contract for the deployment of XCEED (eXtended Compliance End-to-End Distributed), a blockchain based shared solution to trace the compliance of thousands of parts assembled in a vehicle in almost real time.

Today’s announcement follows the successful testing of the XCEED solution at Renault’s Douai plant, and will be deployed to partners’ plants around Bursa in Turkey, Douai in , and Palencia in Spain. XCEED is now open to global OEMs and suppliers, no matter the size, throughout the supply chain.

A tool to meet the growing demand for transparency XCEED improves responsiveness and efficiency at a time of ever-greater regulatory stringency. New market surveillance regulations came into force in September 2020, introducing enhanced regulatory controls for vehicles already on the market. The entire production chain thus must adjust its structure to respond to the regulatory authorities within shorter timeframes.

An inclusive platform for the benefit of the European automotive industry The ambition with XCEED is to provide a compliance and conformity traceability platform for the entire ecosystem of the European automotive industry, for answering regulation and customer demand, and bolsters European industrial competitivity and technological sovereignty. XCEED is designed to be inclusive for all the automotive industry players worldwide, from multinational companies to SMEs, with access to a powerful, shared digital tool.

XCEED uses the blockchain to create a trusted network for sharing compliance information between parts/systems manufacturers, throughout the supply chain to end vehicle manufacturers. The XCEED platform will help ensure better and more efficient compliance management, while respecting each company’s confidentiality, intellectual property, and data ownership. Having a unique but distributed platform across the automotive ecosystem is a very good way for the industry to answer to the growing requirements of regulation without multiplying complex data reconciliations. It will thereby benefit the European automotive industry by improving information exchange and increasing trust within and outside the ecosystem through automatic sharing, checks and alerts of data in near real time. The solution is the result of the initial action led by its founding partners and based on an open governance approach to welcome new participants. It is also realised in interaction with DG Connect in the European Commission.

Based on “Hyperledger Fabric”, an open-source blockchain protocol, XCEED has been developed in partnership with IBM. It intends to be deployed in a Hybrid Cloud architecture with multiple Cloud providers, among which IBM Cloud, to allow each member to run on the Cloud platform of their own choice.

Launched in 2019, XCEED has been designed and implemented in collaboration with leading automotive industry players - Faurecia, Groupe Renault, Knauf Industries, Simoldes and Coşkunöz - the fruit of collective intelligence and an adaptive agile methodology that marked an unprecedented multi-company approach to data-sharing and project management.

*** Quotes Dirk Wollschläger, Industry General Manager, IBM “Blockchain proved its value in providing a new way to manage traceability and compliance in the food industry, in supply chain and others. XCEED is our first initiative in the automotive industry that is targeting to tackle component compliance traceability at scale, leveraging the value and benefits of blockchain. At IBM, our goal is to provide this industry with appropriate business solutions, through our experience in building blockchain networks on hybrid multi-cloud solutions, to accelerate this journey and build trust for a global Industry-wide platform.”

Eric Jacquot, Group End to End Quality Director, Faurecia “From the very beginning, Faurecia has played a key role within this innovative ecosystem and we are very pleased joining this initiative, a new way of working with our customer Groupe Renault which puts transparency, conformity and traceability at the heart of the supply chain. With this secure, transparent, and automated data sharing system we can trace and resolve issues rapidly, reinforcing compliance, conformity, and competitiveness. We are convinced that this cutting-edge project will change practices in our industry in the years to come.”

Odile Panciatici, Coordinator of the XCEED Project, Groupe Renault “XCEED is a powerful tool for transforming the automotive industry by enabling operational excellence for the whole ecosystem, including smaller players that would not have been able to invest in such technology otherwise.”

Sylvie Janod, Automotive Market Director, Knauf Industries “As a responsible automotive actor on the market, we decided to join XCEED project to increase our efficiency for ensuring our product traceability and conformity. XCEED is a unique opportunity to assess and adjust our systems and methods to improve our agility in a growing complex environment, and to improve hence our overall performance. XCEED is also fully aligned with Knauf Group’s digital strategy and Corporate Social Responsibility policy. With XCEED, we have a consistent approach between our shared expertise during a program concept phase until the end of vehicle’s life. We are glad to belong to an automotive community that will create value and contribute to increase transparency on the market.”

Jaime Sá, Board member, Simoldes “When we understood the XCEED blockchain project would contribute to Operational Excellence by bringing simplicity, speed, transparency and compliance, involving all participants in the business

supply chain we immediately decided to be part of this project as it fits with Simoldes vision “juntos fazemos melhor” and our path to Industry 4.0.”

Barış Karaadak, General Manager, Coşkunöz “We are excited to be part of this pioneering digitalization movement in the automotive sector, as an initial partner company of the XCEED Project. With this global project, we believe that Coşkunöz will achieve a crucial step forward on its digitalization vision journey.”

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About IBM Blockchain IBM is recognized as the leading enterprise blockchain provider. The company's research, technical and business experts have broken barriers in transaction processing speeds, developed the most advanced cryptography to secure transactions, and are contributing millions of lines of open source code to advance blockchain for businesses. IBM is the leader in open-source blockchain solutions built for the enterprise. Since 2016, IBM has worked with hundreds of clients across financial services, supply chain, government, retail, digital rights management and healthcare to implement blockchain applications, and operates a number of networks running live and in production. The cloud-based IBM Blockchain Platform delivers the end-to-end capabilities that clients need to quickly activate and successfully develop, operate, govern and secure their own business networks. IBM is an early member of Hyperledger, an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. For more information about IBM Blockchain, visit https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/or follow us on Twitter at @ibmblockchain.

About Faurecia Founded in 1997, Faurecia has grown to become a major player in the global automotive industry. With 266 industrial sites, 39 R&D centres and 114,000 employees in 35 countries, Faurecia is a global leader in its four areas of business: seating, interiors, Electronics and clean mobility. The Group’s strong technological offering provides carmakers with solutions for the cockpit of the future and sustainable mobility. In 2020, the Group reported total turnover of €14.7 billion. Faurecia is listed on the market and is a component of the CAC Next 20 index. Find out more at: www.faurecia.com

About Groupe Renault Groupe Renault is at the forefront of a mobility that is reinventing itself. Strengthened by its alliance with Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, and its unique expertise in electrification, Groupe Renault comprises 5 complementary brands - Renault, Dacia, LADA, Alpine and Mobilize - offering sustainable and innovative mobility solutions to its customers. Established in more than 130 countries, it currently employs more than 180,000 people and has sold 2,9 million vehicles in 2020. Ready to pursue challenges both on the road and in competition, Groupe Renault is committed to an ambitious transformation that will generate value. This is centred on the development of new technologies and services, and a new range of even more competitive, balanced and electrified vehicles. In line with environmental challenges, the Group’s ambition is to achieve carbon neutrality in Europe by 2050. www.group.renault.com/en/

About Knauf Industries Knauf Industries is committed to supporting the automotive industry transformation challenged by an ever-greater regulatory stringency and new market surveillance regulations. Knauf Industries group is working with the interior, exterior, seating and clean mobility divisions of its customers through customized value proposition, and an international manufacturing footprint. We offer a wide range of foam products and fully-integrated solutions, focusing on technical parts lightening, material and product innovation. To minimize environmental impacts, we develop circular economy solutions and offer plastic recycling services. Knauf Industries’ mission is to create value through sustainable products and practices for all its markets, while supporting the growth of its customers. We are the Industries division of Knauf Group, world's largest gypsum producer and leading manufacturer of building materials. Please visit us on www.knaufautomotive.com

About Simoldes For more information about Simoldes please visit: http://www.simoldes.com/plastics/mission.html Please visit us on http://www.simoldes.com/plastics/

About Coşkunöz As a market leader in Turkey, we have been manufacturing sheet metal parts for the automotive industry for more than 50 years. Our leading position is maintained by continuously improving products, human resources, processes and environmental quality, and above all - the importance we give to customer satisfaction. Certified with TS EN ISO 9001, ISO/TS 16949, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, ISO 27001, we serve 5 continents at global standards and located in Turkey, Russia and Romania. We established Coşkunöz R&D center in 2006 with the importance of development.

We are the preferred choice as a strategic business partner for our customers. Our products include: BIW parts, closures, full assembled chassis and modules. We also offer a range of services: steel stamping (G1, G2, G3, transfer and progressive lines), rollform, robotic spot and MAG welding, robotic sealing clinching, stud, nut and bolt welding.

Coşkunöz Website: https://www.coskunoz.com.tr/en/ Coşkunöz Holding info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN7g1qi-A00